Sandhurst Youth - Community and Church Youth Work

Sandhurst Youth is an independent charity (No 1188155) set up by the church and the town council with the objective of serving young people both in the community and in the churches in Sandhurst. In the context of St Michaels it provides the services of our Youth Worker, Mike Gower, who supports the Youth Team led by Liz Percival. Sandhurst Youth has six trustees, three nominated by the PCC and three nominated by the council.
Sandhurst Youth supports The Youth Team, which is committed to caring and supporting the young people of St Michael’s. The team regards each young person as an individual who we, as a church, need to value and help grow personally in character and spiritually through the challenging transition from childhood to adulthood.
Discussions around faith range from why can’t we have Coke and Maltesers for communion, to could a Christian be a spy. Faith is a journey and it is a honour to travel alongside young people and learn from both sides.
On Sunday mornings we run Reach (Year 6 upwards) which operates in parallel with the 9.30 service, and from 6.00 to 8.00pm each Sunday Sandhurst Youth run "Dream Big" youth club in the Seeby Hall. Various equipment including table football, table tennis, pool, and video games are available, and the evening is open to all young people aged 11 upwards. Attendance is growing steadily. 
Sandhurst Youth work in the community includes regular detached work (hot chocolate proves very popular during winter evenings!), and events such as the summer programme at the Memorial Park for a week at the start of the summer holidays, an annual longboat overnight trip, and a presence at public events such as the Fireworks night.
Spending time standing in a car park listening to a young man explaining how he was alright in year 7 at school but now in year 8 he just swears at teachers. You ask "why, what has changed" the response is that he just finds it difficult to handle lessons and teachers are unfair. So flipping the scene around we ask him how he would feel as a teacher being sworn at, are teachers not human and don’t like being sworn at. The young man thinks for the moment and responds "yeah it is out of order to swear at them, yeah your right, I never thought about it" .

Conversations like these take place at different times and are just a conversation that can plant a seed in a young person’s life. 
We also offer a mentoring scheme for Sandhurst based on the nationally recognised XLM programme; four volunteers have been trained and cleared for safeguarding. This is aimed at older young people (15+) and we supplement this in church with one-to-one support in the Christian journey for the young people leaving home.
None of the work would be possible without the enthusiastic support of the volunteers, and of course we always welcome more. Young people are a lot less scary, and a lot more fun, than you might imagine!

Come And Talk To Us

For more information please see our website sandhurstyouth.org.uk or talk to:
David Percival - Chair of Trustees, Sandhurst Youth
Mike Gower - Youth Worker
Liz Percival - church Youth Team Leader.